Enjoying: Call Your Mother Cherry Pie

I’ve decided that quilts are the common denominator of summer and fall, and since we are Day Two into fall (pause for exuberant interpretive dance), I figured what better way to celebrate this invisible seasonal transition in Florida than to haul a cozy quilt down to the beach. Comfy and warm and cozy and also bright and colorful and free. Both seasons represented well.

Seems equivalent fractions now, but just wait until we add a few more pumpkins to our doorstep and some mulling spices to our cider and some tights to our legs.

Cozy up. We’re Enjoying…

A few more pics from last week’s Chicago trip:

The Conveyer BeltFYI: Letting your kids get their own suitcase off the conveyer belt? I might as well have given her the keys to my car and 50 bucks for a fun night.

John Lennon visits The Bean.

Birds in the Park. At which point I think it necessary to admit that I’ve only recently discovered that Mary Poppins was not singing, “Feed the Birds, TOPPINS a bag,” but tuppence. Because tuppence, unlike toppins, is actually a real word.

Hide and SeekCounting to 10 with Grace. Someone’s peeking.

The American Girl Cafe.The girls had never been to an American Girl store which is basically like an entire city of dolls. The lunch was just precious–little high chairs for the dolls and tiny cups and saucers served right along with the big ones for the humans.

I ate two cinnamon rolls because Bitty Baby passed on hers.

More Summer

Knuckles.

These books that Nella’s obsessed with: Kiki and Coco in Paris and Lulu and Pip. She brings them to us a few times a day to read to her. The photos are so beautiful–and engaging!

And the beginning of fall.Our first pie of the season.

I’ve been making this cherry pie for years with my mom. It’s a verbal recipe we share and any time either of us makes it, we call to go over the recipe (I think we pretend we don’t remember). I’m sharing it here but it won’t keep me from calling her next time I make it. And the next time. Because that’s what this cherry pie is.Call Your Mother Cherry Pie

CrustThis recipe is for a single crust. Double this for a top and bottom crust. I’ve actually been tripling it lately to have plenty enough dough to work with for some good crust fluting on the edge. I roll out any leftover dough, sprinkle a little cinnamon and sugar on it and bake for an extra treat.

1 c. flour1/2 c. Crisco1/4 c. milk1/4 tsp. salt

Filling2 cans tart cherries in water (keep all the water from one can and drain about half from the other)(Fresh tart cherries are great but seasonal. I use 2 cans of Oregon tart cherries–not dark–in water)1 1/4 cup sugar1 tsp. almond extract2 tbsp. flour

Preheat oven to 425°. Mix your filling first and set aside. For the crust, add the flour, Crisco and salt into a large bowl. Using a fork or pastry blender, press the Crisco into the flour mixture until it makes pea-size pieces. Slowly add the milk and fold into the rest of the crust.

Don’t overwork it. If it’s too moist, sprinkle in a little more flour. When dough is well mixed, take out half (for bottom crust), form into a ball and place on floured surface (don’t be shy with the flour). To do this exactly like my mom, at this point you take the edge of your hand and karate chop the dough ball lightly a few times across to get it ready for rolling. Using a rolling pin, roll from the middle of the dough out, turning as you can so that the dough keeps a circular shape as it flattens. Sprinkle more flour if the rolling pin sticks. Continue to roll until your dough is flattened and will fit a 9-inch pie pan. To easily transfer it to the pan, slip a thin metal spatula underneath it, folding the dough circle in half and then into quarters. Transfer to pie pan and unfold. Pour your filling into the bottom crust and add a few pads of butter on top before you add the top crust. Roll out the second half of the dough mix as you did the bottom crust and transfer to top of pie. Trim off edges and pinch together the top and bottom crust with flutes. Cut some vent designs (I make a little feather) and using a pastry brush, brush a little milk on the top of pie crust and sprinkle with sugar. Bake for ten minutes on 425° and then drop heat to 375° for 40-45 more minutes, until your crust is as brown as you’d like. Let pie cool for 15-20 minutes.

Enjoy!

********

And speaking of call your mother, I called my mama for some music lesson tips as I was working on this little piece for eHow this week.

My grandma makes the best pies and when she has leftover dough (which she always does because that’s how we roll), she cuts it into small pieces, covers it with cinnamon & sugar, rolls them up into mini cinnamon bun shapes and bakes them in one of her many pie pans. Growing up (and now), we called them “belly buttons” and with so many cousins, we were only able to have 1-2 each and I always got in trouble for “swiping” too many. I love the name of the recipe.. it reminded me to call my mom & my grandma! And my aunts while I’m at it.

What?! It’s really not topppins?! My childhood just exploded. I think I’ll just pretend like I didn’t read this and continue on blissfully unaware that I have no idea what the actual words to that song are.

Totally thought it was toppins too. My husband pointed it out to me one day acting all “duh” about it. I got him back when I caught him in thinking Alaska is an island. Legit – he is almost 30 years old with a college degree and he truly thought Alaska was an island because they always show it by itself on maps…. No words.

I liked your article at eHow. The tips to encourage a love of music were really helpful.Our oldest will turn 5 this winter and I have been thinking of piano lessons for her in the future. I always wanted to take them when I was a kid, and it is a skill I wish I possessed. Good luck to Lainey!

When I was little, my grandma would let me use the extra pie crust dough to make the cinnamon/sugar cookies. I remember being so excited because she would let me use any and all of her cookie cutters and I got to roll them out myself. I have an entire drawer full of cookie cutters in my kitchen because of how much I loved doing that with my Grandma.

My MIL’s cherry pie recipe is very similar but she has two additions. (One) she adds a tsp of lemon juice and (two) she puts little dabs of butter on top of the filling before covering it with the top pie crust because she says it makes this inside glossier looking when eating.

My daughter played the Bird Woman in our high school musical last Spring. I think I heard her sing that song 30 times and was convinced it had to be ‘two pence’ since tuppence seemed insane! Thanks for clearing it up for me!

From Australia – what is that super white , non icing sugar thing you are cooking with? We don’t have that! I think I am glad – gorgeous lady is that hyper processed trans fat, bleached white? Like super orange American cheese, your food is scaring me more than a little.!!!